An Unkindness of Tradition: Shirley Jackson´s Biography

Suspense is defined as the author withholding information or when the unexpected happens, leaving you guessing and wanting more. In the story “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, he has inserted much suspense in this short (long) story, for the reason that it makes the reader want to know more and having to mindset of excitement or surprise. Another reason he added many suspense is so that it wouldn’t be so blunt, it wouldn’t just tell us what happened it would give us details and how he got or how he did that and more.

The gothic romance and mystery of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca show the style in which a deep, dark secret is held at the beautiful Manderley, and a young love is influenced by the haunting of Manderley’s former mistress. Using the harrowing style of suspense, Daphne tells a tale of a young woman trying to live a life in the home of someone who has not quite left yet. With extraordinary scenery, strong symbolism, and plenty of hidden irony, Daphne du Maurier has made an everlasting psychological thriller.

In both the excerpts "Jams" and "Swimming with Nightmares" by Peter Benchley, the author creates suspense in many ways. The author utilizes descriptive words, character's choices, and dangerous situations for creating suspense.

Muriel Spark’s work is appreciated as appealing to readers and described best as “clever and elegant.” According to Waugh, novels of Spark are extraordinarily various, diverse in themes and all novels are fused with each other by a tone or a voice. However, some of her novel may appear bizarre and at times emblematic to readers, while some are

Shirley Jackson was born on December 14, 1916 in San Francisco, California. She was the daughter of Leslie Hardie (President of Stecher-Traung Lithograph,Inc.) and Geraldine Bugbee Jackson.

Jackson does not reveal the unethical and violent nature of the lottery until the very end, where the reader loses their earlier presumptions about an innocent lottery. Therefore, foreshadowing and suspense becomes a very large force in the story until the ending, and Jackson gives many hints to the reader. At the beginning of the story, children are found stuffing their pockets full and making towering piles of stones. Readers may brush this off as ordinary play of children, but in fact, it has a cruel purpose near the story’s end. Another area of foreshadowing is when Mr. Summers, the lottery’s organizer, asks the Watson boy to draw for him and his mother. Mr. Watson is not mentioned, like the other male head of households who pick for their families, so it can be assumed that Mr. Watson lost his life during the previous years’ lottery. All of this shows the juxtaposition between the seemingly everyday activities of the town and the cruel nature of what actually happens that day.

     The plot as a whole in “The Lottery” is filled with ironic twists. The whole idea of a lottery is to win something, and the reader is led to believe that the winner will receive some prize, when in actuality they will be stoned to death by the rest of the villagers. The villagers act very nonchalant

According to Helen E. Nebeker, most acknowledge the energy of The Lottery, admitting that the psychological stun of the ritual murder in a modern, rural small-town cannot be easily overlooked. Virgil Scott, for instance, says, “the story leaves me uneasy because of the author's use of incidental symbolism: the black box, the forgotten tuneless chant, the ritual salute to assure the entire recreation of the procedure of the lottery forget to serve the story as they may have.” At that point, they indicate fundamental weakness by acknowledging that Jackson has preferred to give no answer to her story, but it leaves the meaning to our imagination, allowing a good deal of flexibility in our interpretation, while yet demanding that everything in the story has been obtained to assure us how we are to 'take' the ending events in the story. Maybe the critical conflict depicted above comes from failure to see that The Lottery really intertwines two stories and subjects into a fictional vehicle. The obvious, easily discovered story shows up in the facts, wherein members of a small town meet to decide who will be the next victim of the annual savagery. The symbolic hints which develop into a second, sub rosa story becomes apparent as early as the fourth word of the story when the date of June 27th alerts us to the season of the summertime with all its connotation of ancient ritual. From the symbolic development of the black box, the story shifts quickly to climax.

Many of the small, undetected details throughout “ The Lottery” seem to foreshadow a disturbing ending to the story. In the beginning of the story children gather around and form piles of stones in the time square. This comes off as very child-like and innocent and does not lead the reader to feel any way suspicious about these children’s purpose for piling the stones. The real purpose of the stones is obviously is revealed toward the end of the story. Tessie seems to show up late to the lottery, which kind of shines a light on her, and makes her stand out from the crowd. Mr. Summers makes a comment on how they were going to have to start the lottery without

some of the events throughout the story. Symbolism in "The lottery" is mainly represented by the

Shirley Jackson was a successful writer because she practiced her writing skills. Evidence of this is, “After a year, in 1936, she withdrew and spent a year at home practicing writing, producing a minimum of a thousand words a day “ (BIO). Jackson spent her time by making her writing better just from writing a little everyday. The text states, “In 1945, Stanley Hyman was offered a teaching position at Bennington College, and they moved into an old house in North Bennington, Vermont, where Shirley continued her daily writing while raising children and running a household” (BIO). As Jackson got older and had a family she still was writing everyday. This could be a result to her never really failing when it came to writing popular stories because

The reader might interpret the lottery as a good thing, but as they read they pick up small details on how it was an incorrect interpretation. In lines 15-18 it states, “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones.” It shows foreshadow from this piece of evidence of what is going to go on at the end of the story. It was thought to be a good lottery by the reader at the beginning, but it was a lottery with the prize of death, you get stoned. Additionally, the author sets the characters’ perspective to be a neutral view on the lottery, many readers might think the lottery in the story is just not right.

It is my hope to become a great engineer one day. Because of my career choice to become an Engineer, I felt Shirley Jackson has been, and is continues to be an inspiration to me. We often dwell on the past with famous people, but I chose to be inspired by one that is alive and kicking. I am inspired by a female African-American engineer and scientist by the name of Shirley Jackson. Therefore, it was essential for me to examine her early life and schooling, career, honors and distinctions, and personal life.

Phyllis Dorothy James (1920 - ) is one of the greatest English novelist of all times, and unquestionably, the greatest mystery writer alive. She is often compared to Agatha Christy because of her mastery to accomplice suspense and to make the reader addictive to her stories, but the fact is that her writing goes higher than that. She has said that her influences include Jane Austen, Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh. Her first novel Cover her face became an unexpected success and her reputation rose instantly. Today, every book she publishes with her name on the cover sells millions of copies around the world.

Death and romance are not only prevalent and important themes in contemporary young adult fiction but in literature in general; from Shakespearian plays to poetry to classic novels we see a constant recurrence of these themes. Authors of all genres use these themes as functional devices in their works to powerfully manipulate the reader’s emotions. The ways in which they are presented may have changed as literature has changed, the general idea, discussion and reaction by readers has not. This therefore makes for a reason as to why the genre is worthy of study; in order to see how the authors of this